It helped that all 285 atheists/agnostics signed a statement that they would be civil—they did that when they checked in and got their tickets from their organizer, Lyz (who was a pleasure to work with). By the way, I did not request that the signed agreements were to be done (with the exception of getting the professor’s signature [he is an out-spoken atheist and anti-creationist, who is known for making vile comments], which we demanded in a certified letter mailed to him over a week ago)—to her credit, Lyz, after hearing our concerns about the web chatter about the possible behavior of her SSA group, did not want to see a ruckus in the museum, and she, I understand it, volunteered the idea of having her group sign such a statement (and we did verify with Lyz that the prof signed it).

It’s true! I did have to sign a promise not to be naughty in the “museum” — they were very concerned that we might have gay sex on the exhibits.

By the way, I’m still extra-special. Ham mentions the student’s name — Tyler Simko — and even links directly to his blog, Quantumaniac, but me? I’m still the vile Atheist Professor who must not be named.

Every time Ken Ham whines about someone getting him wrong he implicitly admits that I get him right; but he continues to run from me and explicitly advising his followers that I’ve got it right regarding Ken Ham and his position as to my “Goliath of GRAS” critical thinking exercise regarding young-earth creation-science:

Ken Ham recognizes, based on the stipulations and
the force and effect of sound, biblical, common-sense
reasoning that the major premise of the “Goliath of
GRAS” argument is true.

(3)

Ken Ham rejects the minor premise of the “Goliath
of GRAS” argument because he’s got his
interpretation of the Bible regarding the age of
stuff and that trumps any other evidence and
its interpretation to the contrary.

In his whining about Tyler, Ken made reference to the work of Mr. Looy, his right hand man. Mr. Looy, acting as agent for Ken Ham, recently advised me that Ken Ham simply was not going to come out, come clean and publicly admit that I got him right!

Simko writes: “A scientist should use God as neither an explanation or a result of a scientific finding”.

If God is first defined in any way that allows testing and coming up with God as a plausible, parsimonious explanation, along with a mechanism it for doing things, that would be ok. Of course, the believers would fidget around a bit and probably deny that their God has been found, and insist that the real one is still way back there in some murky gap of ignorance, simply because there’s no way ancient semi-nomads could have been wrong about it and because any attempt at a definition rigorous enough to pose testability would reduce the grandeur and ineffability of the being that they wish God to be.

hypatiasdaughter,
It’s no use. I have chanted “Candyman” lots of times but the yellow wanker will not appear. I will stick to Ctulhu in the future.
(But you seem to have successfully summoned a slymepitter. Work on it, and let me know when you get something more substantial popping up in the pentagram). :)

First, people aren’t actually banned for being from the Slymepit. PZ doesn’t have some magical way of knowing who you are, so he can ban you. What happens is that slymepitters very often turn out to be complete, blithering assholes.
I’ve said it before, make a new account, post decent, rational arguments and only then reveal that you’ve been a slymepitter all along. That would be the way to go. It would be like a freakin’ christmas special or something.
– “I was one of them from the beginning.”
– “Oh, I see the error of my ways, now.”
*big hugs and fadeout with music in the background*

Second, we keep hearing about all these reasonable arguments you guys have. Yet, oddly, you never seem to get around to actually making them. Without fail your posts are always the wort drivel.
And no, it’s not that the good ones are being deleted by the evil PZ. He can’t delete the mails we get when subscribed to a thread. Even if your comment is deleted, the subscribers can still read it. So far, the good, sensible posts just haven’t been forthcoming.

Of course you already know this, but I’m just posting for the benefit of anyone unfortunate enough to stumble into the middle of this.

But…I said “PZ” in the mirror three times and you didn’t appear and strangle me with your tentacles. I am…disappointed. Perhaps it only works for creationists. Or maybe I was supposed to use the English pronunciation of Z.

plus, Paden’s been banned. There’s just still stuff he needs to get off his chest. If you miss his comments here, he tends to cross-post to the ‘pit so that nobody has to be cruelly deprived of his prose and wisdom by that mean ol’ hypocritical poopyhead censor Meyers.

The Lymepit
Lately, some people with a notorious history of repulsive behavior and an association with a place of ill-repute called the Slymepit have taken to blatantly trolling here to get recognition of their vile behavior. They are thrown into the dungeon all right, but I’m not going to grant them any notoriety by mentioning them — they just get namelessly blocked without acknowledgment.

Yes, but why is that? It’s not from some random prejudice of PZ’s. That policy is in place because of the long history of trolling behavior exhibited by Slymepitters. In addition to that, it would be downright trivial to simply create a new account and not mention that they were from the slymepit.

So, the real reason is not where they’re from, but how they act. Where they’re from simply works as a handy heuristic for predicting their behavior. That’s the distinction I was getting at.